How to Find Work in Applied Sociology Research

We look at real-world examples of advertised applied research roles, keywords to use when job hunting, and what to expect at each career level, from graduate to senior roles. We end with some tips about how to demonstrate your experience to potential employers.

Career in applied research

Our previous post on Sociology in Action showed the varied impact sociologists can make in applied research.

Sociological methods and theory are well placed to deliver quality research projects.

Jobs for sociologists

At the time of writing, the largest online job site in Australia showed almost 400 jobs in applied research, across diverse industries. This includes:

• Consumer advocacy
• Ethics policy in health
• Policy researcher in government
• Project management in disability and aged care
• Grants writer in the not-for-profit sector
• Leading strategies for peak industry groups.

You can search for similar roles using the keywords below.

What to expect

In graduate and early-career roles, you will need foundational research skills:

• Research: Carry out interviews. Support community consultations. Design surveys. Collect data from other agencies
• Written communication: Draft policy submissions, making recommendations on policies and legislation. Assist preparation of public reports. Support internal briefs for managers, citing internal sources (such as audits), and ‘grey literature’ (publicly available, non-academic sources)
• Administrative support: Maintain internal processes and procedures, such as ethics, data storage, and more
• Oral communication: Create and deliver presentations for senior leaders.

In mid-career roles, you will demonstrate experience in one or more of these areas:

• Policy analysis: Critically review policies. Identify industry requirements. Track public opinion trends
• Liaise with stakeholders: This may be government officials, colleagues from not-for-profit groups, industry representatives, and committee members. This includes facilitating workshops with stakeholders, providing policy advice, taking Minutes of meetings, writing professional emails, and summarising key decisions
• Knowledge translation: Promote research uptake by policy-makers, practitioners, and community groups. Create multimedia assets. Manage approvals for publications and media releases. Test or track outcomes of social media campaigns.

In senior management roles, you might additionally demonstrate:

• Leadership: Managing staff. Mentorship. Conflict resolution. Professional development activities and review
• Systems and governance: Report on and improve the way work is delivered. Maintain software and administrative systems according to legal and industry requirements. Prepare documentation of processes and decisions. For example, awareness of how privacy legislation may impact data collection and storage, and understanding record keeping requirements
• Risk management: Understanding how to identify, mitigate, and document risks. Implementing occupational health and safety measures
• Project management: Develop project plans. Report against milestones and deliverables. Deliver products according to a contract, Memorandum of Understanding, or another formal agreement.

In executive roles, you are expected to:

• Strategic vision: Provide strategic planning and direction. Design and implement research policies and frameworks. Set research values. Drive quality, evidence-based practice. Advance research objectives, organisational mission, and profile. Recognised as sector expert, with influence at local, national, and international levels. Lead innovation and organisational change
• Financial: Manage research budgets. Generate sustained revenue through philanthropy, funding bids, or contracts
• Legal: Responsible for professional codes, research ethics policies, legal and statutory compliance. Accountable for research brand and company reputation. Review and approve annual reports, financial reports, responses to information requests (e.g. notices, summons). Prevent, and respond to, strategic and operational emergencies
• Reputation: Responsible for performance of research programs. Oversight of research services, accuracy, efficiency, and customer service delivery. Represent the organisation with government, industry partnerships, Boards, and committees. Conduct public facing media about research publications and outcomes. Lead industry reforms. Contribute to policy submissions, position papers, reports, government consultation, and industry reviews.

Students

If you’re interested in applied research roles, but lack work experience, consider internships and graduate programs. See below for how one sociology graduate went from an internship to an applied research job.

Applied Sociology Career in Health and Ageing: Dr Sue Malta

Discuss your training or experience with analysis software, such as Qualtrics, SPSS, NVivo, R, Excel, and Survey Monkey.

Demonstrate how your skills as an undergraduate ‘translates’ to industry contexts. For example, highlight presentations you’ve given, your approach to group assignments, and teamwork from other casual or part-time roles.

Show your ability to assist with project management. Discuss how you have managed your time, how your prioritise tasks, and meet deadlines. For example, reporting to your supervisor at your paid (non-research) job, or your thesis supervisor if you’re still in university. Give examples of your attention to detail. For example, have you picked up any errors in a dataset, and what did you do to fix this?

Graduates

Run through your approach to literature reviews. For examples, how you choose keywords, databases, how you organise themes, and use theory to organise your argument.

Applied research roles emphasise a specialty in research methods. Employers will often ask for both quantitative and qualitative methods, but unless they specify specific software knowledge or experience, don’t worry if you only have experience with either quant or qual. Most people pretend do both, but it’s best to show your strengths.

Irrespective of your method, outline the research process. E.g. Scoping the problem, operationalising concepts, literature review, research plan (including resources, how to identify research questions using theory, and so on), project plan (including deadlines and outputs/ deliverables), analysis, reporting, and everything in between.

For qualitative research, discuss your methods process. Outline how you approach recruitment of participants, your analysis process, and so on, and link it back to the advertised role. E.g. How many interviews have you conducted and what did you find that bears relevance to this job? Where and why did you carry out participant observation, and how did this approach deliver unique community insights that might help the organisation you’re applying to?

For quantitative research, discuss your research design and instruments (surveys, statistical modelling, randomised control trials, so on). Detail the complexity of social projects, such as sample sizes, analysis planning, the largest dataset you’ve worked with, and how you manage known and unknown issues. E.g. When to use stratification, p-values, validation, registration of analysis plans.

Discuss your experience dealing with ethics procedures during your internship or your thesis. For example, applying for ethics approval, the types of issues you identified and managed, how to protect data, privacy, and informed consent, and any experience working with vulnerable or hard-to-reach groups.

Highlight your ability to communicate specialist concepts to broad audiences. This might be conference presentations you’ve given, experience communicating public education through social media, blog posts, or other writing you’ve done. If you have volunteered with community groups, below are some tips on how you can use this experience in a job application.

Talking Sociology With Local Communities

Most applied research roles are multidisciplinary. Include your experience in any committees or local groups, as well as leadership courses you have completed.

You will have an advantage if you can provide specific examples of your research experience. For example:

• Working with an industry association, dealing with government, or membership with advocacy networks
• Recommendations on best practice
• Strong administrative skills.

Examples of sociology roles

Below are some example roles in applied research, available at time of writing. The specific positions may have closed by the time you read this, but you might use these roles and company types to search for similar roles in your country.

Table 1: Example jobs in applied research

JOB TITLES	SOCIOLOGY SKILLS 2	JOB LEVEL 3	COMPANIES HIRING
Research Assistant HACCOE (Kangan Institute Health and Community Centre of Excellence)	Research experience, including data collection and analysis Proficiency with research software packages (e.g., SPSS, NVivo, R, Excel) Master’s degree	Student	Bendigo Kangan Institute
Policy and Research Officer	Policy analysis Qualitative and quantitative methods Advanced Excel and data analysis skills	Early-Career	Victorian Automotive Chamber of Commerce
Research Officer	Draft research reports Literature review Administrative assistance to stakeholders	Early-Career	Parliament of Victoria
Policy and Procedure Project Officer	Technical writing of policies, procedures, and templated guidance Project management capability, including stakeholder consultation Understanding of aged care legislative and regulatory frameworks	Early-Career	Basscare
Research Analyst	Advice and analysis Technical data analysis and modelling Prepares reports, briefs and correspondence on complex issues	Mid-career	Department of Jobs, Skills, Industry and Regions
Secretariat, Justice Human Research Ethics Committee	Management or support services to committees, workshops and forums Knowledge of ethics approval process, the underlying National Statement of Human Research Ethics, and the role of the Human Research Ethics Committee	Mid-career	Department of Justice and Community Safety
MRFF/NHMRC Grant Advisor	At least two years’ experience with Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) At least five years’ experience with National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Experience facilitating grant writing workshops Knowledge of Australian Research Council (ARC) schemes	Mid-career	The GrantEd Group
Field Placement Coordinator: Bachelor of Human and Community Services	Professional membership or links to the human and community services sector Three years post-qualification Experience in education, unit co-ordination and assessment Desirable: research publications	Mid-career	IBC Education
Senior Project Officer	Plan, implement and coordinate projects Manage relationships Provide written and oral advice to senior management to inform regulatory decisions Expertise on consumer vulnerability, equity and fairness in markets and systems	Senior	Consumers and Equity Essential Services Commission
Manager Research Ethics and Governance	Deliver ethics and governance reviews Leading a team Ensure audit-ready committee operations Support accreditation and compliance Extensive knowledge of the National Statement on Human Research Ethics, Australian Code, privacy law and governance requirements	Senior	Austin Health
Research and Development Manager	Implement strategies, policies and plans for people with disabilities Set research priorities and manage projects to improve quality of life Provide advice to senior leadership on R&D options, benefits, and costs Monitor leading-edge developments in disability services, support methods, inclusive care	Senior	Hi Five Community Services Pty Ltd (via NetYourJob)
Assistant Director Innovation and Research	Problem solving and critical thinking capability Facilitation and presentation skills Build trusting relationships with stakeholders Strategic leadership	Senior	Australia New Zealand Policing Advisory Agency (ANZPAA)

Resources

See our Careers in Applied Sociology series, for advice on how to search for jobs, how to write your CV and resume, and how to apply for a job.

Notes

1. These job roles appear in searches with the aforementioned keywords. The term ‘sociology’ may appear either in the text of the ad, or in the backend, where recruiters can specify keywords for candidates
2. Quotes in the ‘Sociology Skills’ column come directly from the job ad. By the time of publication, these roles may be closed.
3. Definitions of ‘Job Level’ as per stipulations in the job ad (e.g. required years of experience): Student – graduate or PhD opportunities, Early-Career – recent graduate with one to five years’ industry experience, Mid-Career – degree plus five to ten years’ industry experience, Senior – degree plus five to ten years’ experience managing projects, teams, stakeholders, programs, or services, Executive – degree plus ten to 15 years senior leadership of large business units, departments, or organisations (e.g. managing budgets, strategic policy, and governance).